WILD finish at Seymour Opener

Seymour, May 5- N.E.W. DIRT opened their 30th Anniversary season Sunday night at the Seymour Speedway with a stout field of 121 cars checking in to do battle on the 1/3 mile banked clay oval.

The Street Stocks opened the feature portion of the program with Jon Ashcraft of Oshkosh settling into the top spot on the first lap. Following a lap 7 caution, Jerry Kope and Mert Summers joined the leader and the trio pulled away from the field in a tight battle for the lead. Kope dove to the inside and there was a three wide battle for most of the nest lap, with Kope emerging as the leader on lap 16.

Kope was able to hold off the challenge and took the feature win for the first win of the season and first at Seymour since May 28, 2006. Summers held off Ashcraft for the runner up spot with Dan Davister taking fourth and Jeff Jungwirth rounding out the top 5.

A field of 23 cars started the IMCA Sport Mod main. JJ Andersen grabbed the top spot followed by Tyler Wilson, Jessi Ness, Kevin Bethke, Jeremy Cota and Josh Long. Andersen opened a lead as Wilson and Cota fought for the runner up spot. Cota worked into second on lap 11 and pulled up to the leader. Cota was able to move into the top spot briefly on lap 15 before a lone caution slowed the race on lap 15 and gave the lead back to Andersen.

With the field now bunched behind, Andersen continued to lead for 2 more laps before Cota once again took over on lap 17. Tracy Wassenberg, Steve Schneider and Long moved up to hound Andersen for the final couple laps. Cota drove off with his first fature win of the season with Anderson taking second by inches at the line from Wassenberg. Lomng edged Aschneider at the line for 5th.

Defending track and National IMCA Stock car champion Brandon Czarapata drew to outside pole for the main event and quickly moved into the lead at the start. Bill Kelsey, Chaz Van Ooyen, Jeremy Wiitala and John Heinz set up to run for second place. The first of three caution over the next 6 laps flew on lap 5. Czarapata was able to hold the lead through the restarts and the final 10 laps went green with Czarapata leaving the field to battle for the runner up spot. Wiitala, Gregg Gutt, Rod Snellenberger and Kelsey put on a shoe for second running 2 and three wide.

Czarapata collected his first feature win of the season with Snellenberger inching into second at the line with Wiitala taking third. Kelsey and Shawn Wagner rounded out the top 5.

The Budweiser IMCA Modifieds took the track next with Charlie Wild and Kyle Lentz sitting on the front row. Wild took the lead and stayed to the inside while Lentz chose to run the outside. The pair pulled away from the field a bit while Jerry Wilinski, Jeremy Christians, Jaie Schmidt and Brad Lautenbach dropped in behind.

Over the first 10 laps the frontrunners remained nearly side by side with Wild holding the edge as the field strung out and the leaders started to catch traffic. Lentz was able to use a lapped car on lap 13 to power into the top spot out of turn 2. It appeared that Lentz would be able to hold the lead with 6 laps remaining but Wild continued to run low and kept the pressure on. On lap 17, Wild pulled alongside and was able to re-take the top spot, and held off Lentz over the final 3 laps to win his first career Seymour feature. Lentz took second with a hard charging Christians taking third. Mitch McGrath, defending division champion, Jason Czarapata , and Lautenbach rounded out the top 6 in the caution free event.

The Fastrack Late Models return to the Seymour Speedway weekly in 2013, and Jeff Curtain started on the front row and powered into the lead and led every lap to win his first career Seymour feature. Jeff Wickersheim, Wayne Block, Adam Janke, Derek Janke and David Bennett round out the top six.

Brian Johnson took the 4 Cylinder lead over defending champion Calvin Stueck and led every lap to win his first feature of the season here and second for the weekend. Stueck took second with Kyle Walters, Brandon Petri and Dennis Lewins rounding out the top 5.

Weekly Sunday night programs will continue through Labor Day at the Seymour Speedway. Racing starts at 5 PM for the month of May